3-division champion Lomachenko announces retirement at 37
Two-time Ukrainian Olympic gold medalist became the pound-for-pound king, future Hall of Famer and dazzled for a decade
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Vasiliy Lomachenko, viewed by many as the greatest amateur boxer of all time, a former pound-for-pound king, three-division world champion, and a slam dunk future International Boxing Hall of Famer, announced his retirement on Thursday in two social media videos, one in his native Ukrainian and one in English.
“I’m grateful for every victory and defeat inside the ring and outside the ring,” Lomachenko, 37, said in his English video. “I’m thankful that as my career comes to an end I’ve gained clarity about the direction a person must take in order to achieve true victory, not just in the ring.”
Lomachenko, who has been sidelined with a back injury, had been contemplating retirement for months. Now that it is official, he leaves behind a superb ring legacy filled with historic accomplishments and accolades.
“It’s been an honor for all of us at Top Rank to promote the pro boxing career of Vasiliy Lomachenko,” said Top Rank chairman Bob Arum, who promoted every one of his fights. “He was a generational champion, and we will all miss his participation in the sport.”
As an amateur, Lomachenko went a mind-boggling 396-1 — he avenged the loss twice — and won back-to-back Olympic gold medals for Ukraine, at featherweight in 2008 and lightweight in 2012.
As a professional, “Loma” displayed a mix of power, skill, speed, otherworldly footwork and defense, and supreme ring intelligence. He won six world titles in three divisions: featherweight, junior lightweight and lightweight during an 11-year pro career. At lightweight, he was also the lineal champion and unified the WBA, IBF and WBC belts.
In what will go down as his final fight if he remains retired, Lomachenko traveled to George Kambosos Jr.’s home country of Australia and knocked him out in the 11th round of a one-sided fight to win the vacant IBF lightweight title on May 12, 2024.
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There were efforts to make a unification fight between Lomachenko and WBA lightweight titlist Gervonta Davis that was penciled in for this past November. Top Rank and Davis representatives from Premier Boxing Champions were close to a deal but Lomachenko instructed the discussions to end because he said he wanted to take off the rest of 2024. Then he hurt his back.
With his retirement, Lomachenko will vacate the IBF title and Top Rank stablemate Raymond Muratalla, who won the vacant interim title by lopsided decision over Zaur Abdullaev on May 10, will be upgraded to the full titleholder.
Because of the back injury Lomachenko has been dealing with he received a medical exception from the IBF for his mandatory defense. He could have waited until October, when the fight was due, before making a decision but elected to retire well ahead of the deadline.
“I thank God for my honest and wonderful and kind parents for their care, love and warmth I’ve felt throughout my life,” Lomachenko said in his video. “My father (and trainer Anatoly Lomachenko) taught me not only art of boxing, but how to be a role model for my own children the same way he has always been for me. I’ve made many mistakes in life and in the gym but he was always by my side, correcting me when needed. I have many warm memories.
“To my family, you have always stood by me. You shared in my victories and you felt the pain of my losses. Those losses only made us stronger.”
Lomachenko also thanked longtime manager Egis Klimas for his efforts on his behalf and then thanked career-long promoter Top Rank and Arum “for amazing opportunity to showcase my abilities in boxing.”
Lomachenko added, “I am grateful to the Untied States of America for giving me the chance to realize my potential and I would be remiss not to thank you, my dear boxing fans around the world. You have always supported me with passion.”
When Lomachenko completed his second Olympic gold medal run and was meeting with promoters about a pro contract his main goal was not getting the biggest signing bonus he could extract. His desire was to fight for a world title in his professional debut. When he met with Arum and asked if that was possible, Arum told him it wasn’t but that he probably could make it happen in his second fight.
Lomachenko signed with Top Rank and made his heralded pro debut on Oct. 13, 2013 in a 10-rounder for a WBO regional title. He knocked out fringe contender Jose Luis Ramirez in the fourth round on the Timothy Bradley Jr.-Juan Manuel Marquez undercard in Las Vegas.
Winning the regional belt earned him a spot in the WBO rankings and in his second fight, Lomachenko faced Orlando Salido, who had been stripped of the WBO featherweight title for missing weight. Lomachenko lost a hard-fought split decision in a fight that Salido repeatedly hit him low in but was not penalized.
In his third fight, Lomachenko met 24-0 U.S. Olympian Gary Russell Jr. for the vacant WBO title in June 2014 and put on a dazzling display in a decision win. By winning a world title in his third pro go, Lomachenko tied Thailand’s Saensak Muangsurin, who won the WBC junior welterweight title in his third fight in 1975, for the all-time record for fewest fights needed to win a world title.
Lomachenko (18-3, 12 KOs), a southpaw, would go on to set more records:
Fewest fights (seven) to win a title in a two divisions when he scored a highlight-reel fifth-round knockout of Roman “Rocky” Martinez to win the WBO junior lightweight title in 2016.
Fewest fights needed to win a title in three divisions (12), when he got up from sixth-round knockdown and battled through a torn shoulder to dramatically knock out Jorge Linares in the 10th-round of an even fight at a raucous Madison Square Garden in New York in 2018.
Fewest fights needed to unify titles (13) when he dropped Jose Pedraza twice in the 11th round and won a lopsided decision to unify the WBA and WBO titles.
Two fights later, Lomachenko traveled to London and routed 2012 British Olympic gold medalist Luke Campbell by unanimous decision as he defended the unified title and also won the vacant WBC crown.
At one point, Lomachenko, who was the 2017 fighter of the year by the Boxing Writers Association of America and Ring magazine, made four opponents in a row quit in 130-pound world title bouts: Nicholas Walters in the seventh round, Jason Sosa in the ninth, Miguel Marriaga in the seventh, and two-time Cuban Olympic gold medalist Guillermo Rigondeaux in the sixth round of what remains the only fight in boxing history matching two-time Olympic gold medal winners.
A 14-month layoff followed Lomachenko’s win over Campbell, mainly due to the pandemic. When he returned he had vacated the WBC belt to face IBF titlist and Top Rank stablemate Teofimo Lopez rather than WBC mandatory challenger Devin Haney in a lower-profile fight. Lopez won a competitive unanimous decision to unify titles in the October 2020 bout. Lomachenko had suffered another right shoulder injury that hampered him in the fight and had another surgery.
Lomachenko returned from the loss and surgery to win three fights in a row, knocking out Masayoshi Nakatani and then outpointing former lightweight titlist Richard Commey and Jamaine Ortiz.
After the Commey fight in December 2021, Lomachenko put his career on hold for most of 2022 to serve in a territorial defense battalion after Russia invaded Ukraine.
After Lomachenko returned and beat Ortiz, it set the stage for him to challenge Haney, who had become the undisputed lightweight champion, in May 2023 in the main event of a pay-per-view card at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Haney won close but disputed decision.
One year later, almost to the day, Lomachenko returned to knock out Kambosos to win his sixth world title in what he said is now his final bout.
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I’m glad he went out like this. While, I’m sure he had a couple more great performances in him, father time is undefeated. In this case… Lomachenko got a narrow decision over even him.👏
Congratulations to Lomachenko. A credit to the sport that never sidestepped any challenges. Out of respect, I won't chose today to debate his career.